Five Ways to Kill a Man
by thewordsthatweareneeding
Summary: Five ways Remus Lupin killed during the first war.


1.

Remus Lupin had never exactly been good at holding on to hatred. He deserved it after all, someone like him. Some_thing_ like him. Even when his lycanthropy seemed irrelevant to someone's hatred of him, he knew the two were connected. His lycanthropy defined him. It had made him who he was, what he was, everything he was and was not. Aside from a few passing flashes of childhood, a werewolf was all he had ever been to himself. And it is difficult for a monster such as him to blame anyone for thinking of him or treating him unkindly. It is difficult for him to resent them, to find anger or fault in anyone but the man who had left him that way, and he had never thought of that as a weakness.

Until he became involved in the war.

"Unforgiveables aren't like other spells," he remembered a professor saying back when he was in school. "Most spells just require precision to go over smoothly. Unforgiveables, on the other hand," the professor had leaned in and hushed his voice to a fervent whisper, "they require emotion. Sincerity. You have to _mean _it to cast one."

Instinctively he had known from the start he did not really have it in him. Remus Lupin had struggled too hard for too long to develop a strong set of morals. He had spent most of his life trying not to hurt anyone, trying not to kill anyone, because he knew if he did, he would become a monster. But when the people he had to kill were killing others, did that make it right? It was a question he had stayed up many a night trying to answer, and had never even come close. When he had agreed to go on missions, he had had no idea what he would do when the inevitable moment came that he would have to decide. Except maybe hope someone else would come along to take the burden of the choice off his shoulders.

Then one day he went out on a mission and he grew restless. A knot in his stomach, a nagging suspicion, a stupid impulse- it all led him away from the group and down a corridor where he could have sworn he saw a flash of light in his periphery. He followed it. When he reached the end of the corridor, he turned around and the group was gone, and then he heard a crash and a scream and he was running, moving without making the decision to move, instinctively reacting out of fear and desperation. He only managed to run headlong into a dead end. Worse yet, he seemed to have attracted company along the way.

Before he even turned around, a curse fired at him, narrowly missing and instead hitting the wall and ricocheting with a small explosion. Reflexively he drew his wand and threw back a counter-curse, his aim slightly more assured than his opponent's as his spell found its mark. With an anguished cry, the death eater fell back, sending a downpour of spells upon Remus. He dodged ad he defended. He failed and he fell to his knees in extreme pain. In desperation, the words entered his mind, two simple ones that could save his life. But then he looked up at the man─ _the boy_─ he was facing, and when their eyes met, his mouth went dry, and the words stuck in his throat, forming a lump big enough to choke him. They never made it past his lips. Instead, with his last ounce of resolve, he sent a nonverbal spell to paralyze the man standing over him, watching him fall to the ground and letting out a sigh of relief before struggling back to his feet and limping away, still shaking.

A week later, he saw the headline: "Local Witch Killed, Family Devastated." In the article, there was the name of the victim, the names of the family members, and then the name of a man placed at the scene of the crime. As he read it his mind flashed back to the young man who had stood over him, streaked with blood and sweat and filth, eyes flashing with fire until paralysis had drawn it out, glazing them over. And he knew. He knew it was his fault, that if he had not been so weak and if he had not hesitated, that woman would still be alive, maybe countless others would still be alive.

Remus considered it his first death of the war for which he was responsible.

2. The next time he faced that type of situation, he did not have the same inhibitions. He faced the death eater, a man in his late thirties with bags under his eyes as dark as the robes he wore, with anger rather than compassion or fear. A white-hot hatred bubbled inside him and he saw the face of the man he did not kill, the victims who suffered for it, the friends he lost. His eyes blurred with tears and no longer did a person stand in front of him; only a black smudge, like a shadow that had permeated his life and cast darkness into every corner.

_How do you kill a shadow?_ It was not a true question, containing no answer for which he was searching. It was almost as a joke, really; it was just an instinctive justification for the action he knew would carry out. The action he has become capable of carrying out. _So how do you kill a shadow?_ With a burst of light.

"Avada Kedavra."

Green light exploded into the room, hitting his target squarely in the chest. The body slumped to the floor and Remus stood above him, squinting as he tried to make out the details of the man's face, struggling to discern whether or not the spell worked. When he realized it had, he was met with a feeling equal parts relief and disgust. After another moment, he notices that the neon light he sent to destroy the shadow only adjusted his perception. The brilliant light had left an aching, complete shadow in its absence. He succeeded only in creating a more complete darkness in the room. In the world. In himself.

Months later, his mind resorted to trivial coping mechanisms. Anything to convince himself in his desolation that he had been right. More people would have died, he says. It was him, or me he says. At least he died quickly, he says. But none of it mattered so long as he could still recall the thoughts of the small boy he had been who cowered in fear of the moon, so terrified he might hurt someone, so determined never to kill. It had never even occurred to him to fear killing someone in broad daylight, wearing flesh instead of fur. Although, in truth, he felt every bit as much a monster that night as he did under the shadow of the full moon.

It was Remus Lupin's second kill of the war.

3. Remus always thought that there would be some sort of monumental change if or when he cast his first Unforgiveable. There was not. At least, that was what he began telling himself soon afterwards. The weight of the action clung to his mind and his heart, of course, but he slept no more restlessly than he had before. Nobody looked at him in fear, his hands were not stained with blood, and he did not spend every conscious moment regretting it. He was the same, more or less.

The biggest difference was that no longer was Remus hesitant. He had killed once, he could do it again, and he and everyone else in the Order knew it. He was not quick to the trigger, but his trigger finger was put to use nonetheless. The faces ran together, the names he stopped bothering to learn, the cries that polluted his dreams all sounded the same. It did not matter if he killed. He had killed before, and in time, it was all the same.

He did not keep count of how many killing curses left his lips. It was always the same two words, always the same inflection, always, always the same. At least it was quick. Direct. Painless. It did not feel like killing a man, it felt like watching a man die. And for all the morals he embraced, Remus had very few qualms about watching men responsible for so many deaths die. It was a service. It was exchanging one life for the safety of dozens, and within a few months, he stopped thinking of it as murder. Killing, maybe, but not murder. Murder was what _they_ did. Murder was for black cloaks and white masks and dripping red hands.

Murder was what happened to Marlene McKinnon.

Murder was what seeped into the McKinnon household in the dead of night. It was what ripped adults and children alike from their beds and took their lives one by one. It was what hung over the house like a thick black cloud that spread to everyone who had ever known the family. It was murder whose cold fingers reached out and infected Remus Lupin's heart, twisting, mangling, leaving an impression of it that could not be shaken. Remus had lost too many people to murder to not lose part of himself as well, and an entire family was an entire family more than he could take.

The next time he faced _them _they were smug, taunting even. They always were. They had the option to be, with their forces growing every day, their cause well supported, their comrades returning home to their families every night. Remus hated them for it almost as much as he hated them for the crimes they committed. And when it came time for him to finish the job, he looked down at the angry, desperate eyes of his enemy and remembered the glint of amusement they had held earlier. And he remembered the glint of amusement Marlene's eyes used to take, the glint his own eyes had held when he was with his friends. He remembered her family and his friends and their families and everyone who had been lost, and he was angry. So angry that he could not force out the curse, he could not wrap his lips around the words, he could not hold his wand steady.

His arm lunged forward and found a grip around the man's neck, pushing him into the ground so that he could neither move nor breathe. When Remus finally did utter a spell, it was not the quick, easy death that came with the killing curse. It was a hex. Followed by another, and another. Every horrible spell he had ever cringed at pervaded his mind and tumbled out of his mouth without being processed, until the man beneath him was bruised, bloody, and breathless. And then, he was dead.

When Remus stood, he found his robes black with soot and dirt. His face was pallid from a combination of anger and exertion. He lifted a hand to put his wand back in his pocket, only to find it stained crimson. Black robes. White face. Red hands.

It was the third time he killed a man, and yet the first it felt like murder.

4.

Remus strode into headquarters, pushing his sleeves up his forearms. His head pounded and throbbed. He had received less sleep in the past month than some received in a week, and it was beginning to take a toll on his body. His joints ached with every movement. His breath came in ragged puffs. His eyes were lined with such dark circles he looked like a phantom when the light caught his face. But he would keep going until his reflexes began to slow, until the exhaustion became a detriment to his physical capabilities and he could conscience an extra hour or two of sleep.

He sunk down into a chair and let the cushions swallow him. How he longed to take his shoes off, to lean back and close his eyes, if only for a moment. Yet he stayed as alert as he could, forcing his eyes not to droop closed as he focused on the newspaper he was trying to read.

"Remus," He looked up to see Emmeline Vance before him, looking every bit as forlorn as he did. "You might want to turn to the last page."

With a sigh, he let his eyes fall to the floor. He knew what would be on the last page. An attack. A murder. A massacre. It was always the same story, just with the names and dates shifting. He did not want to hear the same story told, not if the ending was going to remain as unhappy. Still, a morbid sense of obligation drove his fingers to turn the thin paper mechanically, his eyes peering open at the page.

His heart sunk.

Names jumped off the paper at him, swimming in front of his eyes. His throat constricted as he looked at the pictures of dozens and dozens of innocents blinking up at him.

Gone. They were all gone, as Marlene was gone, and Dorcas was gone, and Benjy Fenwick, and too many others to name. Anger coiled in the pit of his stomach like a snake, hissing and rattling and waiting to strike. It had been such a long war. It had been so long since he had received good news. It had been so long since his shoulders had not sagged under the force of the burden he carried. He was too young to feel so old and to be so angry.

They were all too young to die.

"Where is Dumbledore?" he said.

"Nobody's seen him all day."

He tightened his hands into fists. "Find him. And if you can't find him, then find whoever is responsible for this attack and kill them," his jaw clenched so tightly he worried she would not be able to understand him, but if he let it go slack he knew his voice would quiver. "Nobody else will die at their hands. That's what we're _here _for, isn't it?"

Emmeline nodded and retreated warily.

Remus slipped his shoes off and leaned back in his chair. His eyes closed. His breath slowed. But his fists did not unclench and he did not sleep.

If he gave the order, he was responsible for the lives of the death eaters he would sentence for death, but for the first time it was not a hollow realization. It fed the anger boiling in his stomach and overpowered the exhaustion flowing in his bloodstream. It kept him awake. Alert_. Alive._

He would not sleep properly until he could truly add their names to his list.

5.

The war dragged on, growing worse and worse until he had begun to accept the fact that he would not live to see the end of it, and perhaps even if he did, he would not want to. Then all at once, it was over, in one night, with one burst of green light that changed the world.

Harry Potter, the boy who lived. James and Lily, the heroes who died.

Remus could not bring himself to visit either the boy or the graves of his friends after it happened. He could not meet the eyes of their portraits. When he tried to speak their names, his tongue froze and the words never formed. Even thinking of them was painful. He had lost so many people during the war, but he had not expected to lose them. Not when so much was done to protect them.

He could not bear to think of the circumstances of their deaths, not without his hands curling tight and shaking with anger, the same anger that had boiled within him since the war had first taken a turn for the worse. It was not fair. Every wizard would spend the anniversary of that Halloween celebrating the life of a little boy, and he would spend it angry and bitter about the loss of three people whom he loved and the betrayal of one whom he trusted. The betrayal stung the worst.

He could not forgive their deaths for a very, very long time, only because he could not forgive himself for allowing it to happen. He had suspected Sirius. He had worried about their safety. He had known better, he had said nothing, and now he bore the burden of his actions.

The deaths of James and Lily Potter went down in Remus' own personal history as the last of the murders he was responsible for of the First Wizarding War.


End file.
